Hide and Seek
by Screaming Faeries
Summary: Harry Potter's world is turned upside down when his beloved wife dies, leaving him a single father to three children. In a bid to change their chaotic lives, he moves them to Godric's Hollow, a place where he is sure they can be a family. However, when Lily Luna acquires an unusual imaginary friend, things start to take a drastic turn. Warning for triggering themes.


**W.C:** 2,358

* * *

Harry Potter repressed the urge to sigh as he pulled up in front of their new home in Godric's Hollow. Up until recently, Harry, Ginny, and their three children, had made residence in the south east, but some recent changes had forced Harry to want to move somewhere where he could feel more…comfortable.

Things were a lot harder now that Ginny was gone. He glanced into the back seat of his run down ford-focus, which was magically enhanced to fit all three of his children, as well as their whole life's worth of luggage. Albus Severus, James Sirius and Lily Luna were all asleep, resting on each other's shoulders as they snored softly.

It was times like this when Harry really missed his wife. As he thought of her kind brown eyes and warm, welcoming smile, he fought to repress a memory.

 _He's advancing on the bathroom, where from the faint flicker of candlelight is casting shadows on the hallway walls. There is no sound of splashing, so Ginny must have fallen asleep…_

Harry shakes his head roughly, shaking the memory from his mind. "Come on, kids," he shouts, waking all three of his children up suddenly. "We're home!"

The single-fathered family climb out of the car and amble into their new home quickly. Harry forces a smile as he looks up at the recently renovated old house. If he was going to feel at home anywhere, it would be in the house where he was born.

oOo

Things started getting hard for Harry almost straight away.

For one, he was plagued by nightmares every single night. Ginny was the star of all of his dreams, with her burning amber hair and dainty, thin wrists. She was always in the bath, always still, always motionless…

Secondly, the kids were driving him loopy. He longed for James to turn eleven next summer, when he would be going off to Hogwarts. He hated himself for wishing his children away already, but he needed a break.

Thirdly, he hadn't really thought about how nosey his new neighbours might be. The woman who lived in the old Dumbledore was constantly peering over his fence, her sharp blue eyes never far away. It was only a few weeks after they moved in that Harry decided to finally confront her.

"Can I help you with something?"

The woman straightened up behind her fence suddenly, running a hand through her dark blonde hair. "No, no—I'm ever so sorry for being curious," she started, looking embarrassed. "You see—you just look ever so like Harry Potter."

Harry found himself smiling at the woman's abashed disposition, the way she constantly brushed her fringe out of her face and the blush that painted her pale cheeks. He stuck his hand over the fence to shake hers. "I am Harry Potter. Yes, I know it's weird, Harry Potter coming back to live at the house where his parents were murdered," he rushed it out, knowing that it was the subject on the woman's mind. "But, this house was left to me, and it's been doing nothing but rotting out here since that horrible night. I figured that use should be made of it." He paused, desperate to change the subject. "I didn't get your name."

The woman smiled brightly. "I'm Marianne," she greeted brightly. "Marianne Summers."

oOo

Marianne became a frequent regular at the Potter household, and Harry was thankful for the adult company. She often popped round for tea in the afternoon, and Harry was grateful when she started coming over to cook dinner. Cooking had never been his strong suit.

It was a Friday evening when he and Marianne finally started to get a little closer. The kids were up in bed, and he and Marianne had almost finished the bottle of wine they had split. Just as Marianne was looming across the table towards him, her eyes falling shut and her lips puckering expectantly, Harry was blinded by the sudden vision of someone else. Ginny.

He jumped back, climbing out of his seat suddenly. Marianne looked embarrassed, and she scratched the back of her head awkwardly. "I'm really sorry, Harry," she mumbled, her face glowing. "I didn't mean to get carried away. That wine must be strong."

"Don't worry, it's my fault," Harry spluttered quickly. "I just need to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back." He rushed upstairs to the bathroom, and locked himself in. Grasping the sides of the sink, he glared at himself in the mirror. "What are you playing at?" he hissed to his reflection. "Ginny would want you to be happy." His eyes lingered away from his reflection, creeping over to the bath. Ginny…

 _Ginny was laying in the bath, her limbs awkwardly splayed at odd angles. Arms hanging out of the bath, legs bent in an uncomfortable angle. Her head was lolling to the side, her eyes closed, her mouth hanging open. Tresses of orange hair escaped the bun it was tied up in, trailing into the scarlet water that she laid in…_

 _Blood. The bath was full of blood, blood which was seeping from gaping wounds on her wrists._

Harry was startled back to the present by a sudden bang, and a familiar tittering. He looked around the room, realising he was no longer in the bathroom. He was standing outside Lily Luna's room, listening to the laughing from within.

He glanced at his watch and rolled his eyes. It was almost eleven, his young daughter shouldn't be up at this time. He knocked once on the door, and pushed it open.

Lily Luna was stood on her bed, clutching her brown teddy. A grin was frozen on her face, but it quickly faltered when she realised who was at the door, and she sank down into her bed. "Daddy."

"Lily, what are you doing out of bed?" Harry asked, wandering over to her bedside to tuck her in. He pushed the teddy under her chin. "You should've been asleep hours ago."

"Playing," she mumbled.

"With who?" Harry demanded to know. "I heard laughing. Were your brothers in here?"

Lily shook her head firmly. "You-Know-Who."

Harry's entire body froze. "Wh-what?"

"You-Know-Who. He won't tell me his name. He says I have to call him You-Know-Who."

Harry stood up from the bed, glaring at his daughter. "That is a very mean trick to play, Lily," he told her sternly. He knew that little kids often had imaginary friends, but naming her imaginary friend after Harry's long-dead nemesis? That was uncalled for.

"He doesn't like Marianne," Lily called as Harry snapped the door shut. He leaned against it for a moment, rubbing his temples.

oOo

Lily and her new imaginary friend became out of control almost straight away.

At first, Harry allowed her to have her imagination. He let it play out, assuming that James or Albus must have slipped the words 'you-know-who' into conversation whilst they were playing. Ginny had always insisted that their children know about their history, so Harry had allowed James Sirius to read about it. They hadn't expected him to tell Albus all about it, however. Whilst they had ordered James not to tell Lily Luna anything just yet (with her being so young), they were children, after all. Children weren't good at keeping secrets.

It was just silly little things to start with. Crayon on the walls, Harry's ties going missing, toys vanishing from the boys' rooms. Whenever Harry confronted Lily Luna about it, she always had the same answer.

"It wasn't me, Daddy," she promised. "It was You-Know-Who." Her eyes were always so wide and doe-like, her face so innocent, that Harry couldn't help but trust her. It was clear that Lily's imagination was extremely vivid, and she believed in her imaginary friend wholeheartedly. In a way, he envied her. It had been a long time since he had been able to get lost in his imagination.

But then, Lily's imaginary friend started to up his antics. Harry's wand went missing one night, and shortly after, a fire had started in the backyard, almost burning the fence down if Marianne hadn't woken up on time to dowse the flames. Once again, Lily blamed You-Know-Who.

One night, while Harry and Marianne were having dinner, he walked into the kitchen to find that Lily Luna was standing by the door. "Waiting for You-Know-Who, Daddy," she told him, when he asked her what she was doing out of bed. "He's in there with you."

The thought of Lily seeing a Voldemort-like ghost figure standing in the dining room with Harry and Marianne made him shiver, so he packed Lily off to bed quickly.

He really hoped this would stop soon. But it didn't. It got worse.

oOo

 _They were at a party, the night before Ginny died. Harry couldn't find her, though he looked everywhere. Finally, after someone told him he spotted a girl matching her description heading into the stairwell, Harry had spotted her._

 _She was dancing in the stairwell with a man, and the sight made Harry's heartstrings constrict jealously. He looked familiar; dark hair, dark eyes, an accented laugh. Seamus Finnegan. Harry ducked behind a pillar as they swirled around to the muffled music coming from the ballroom, and suddenly, Seamus leaned forward, pressing a kiss to her lips._

 _And she kissed back._

It was three in the morning when Harry woke suddenly, to the sound of whispering.

"What have you done?!" came the distraught whispers of Harry's oldest son.

"You're in big trouble, Lily. They'll send you to prison for this." Albus sounded horrified.

"It wasn't me!" Lily exclaimed, though her voice sounded tearful. "It was—"

"—yeah, we get it," James interrupted sarcastically. "You-Know-Who."

Harry climbed out of bed quickly, and he heard the rampant footsteps of his children heading to their bedrooms at the sound of his bed springs squeaking. "Kids?" he called, heading towards the door. No answer.

When he opened the door, there was an unmistakable, coppery smell in the air. He reached for the light switch and squinted in the sudden glare. There was red paint smeared over the walls.

No, it wasn't paint. It was blood.

Harry suddenly felt much more awake. He ran his hand across the wall, his fingers coming back sticky, red and wet. His forehead suddenly began to perspire.

What had happened? What had Lily and her imaginary friend done now?

He followed the trail of blood to the bathroom, where he could see candlelight flickering on the tiled walls. Something about this scene felt so familiar, so awful…

It was worse than he could have imagined.

The shower curtain was drawn around the bathtub, but the blood was splashed all around the ceramic and the thin plastic material of the curtain. He pulled the curtain back quickly, and crumpled to the floor when he saw the mess within the tub.

Marianne lay on her back in the blood-red water, her limbs bent awkwardly. Her wrists faced upwards, with twin gashes across her veins. The blade lay on the floor besides the bath; a tiny piece of metal. Who would have thought such a small object could cause such destruction?

He looked up at the wall. The blood was smeared on the tiles in the shape of letters. "YOU KNOW WHO DID IT."

Harry backed out of the bathroom. "Daddy," a small voice sounded from behind him. Harry spun around wildly, and crouched down to Lily's level. She had blood on her nightgown. He felt panic rising higher than ever.

"Lily," he whispered, grasping his daughters arms. "What happened?"

"You know wh—"

"Who is he?" Harry questioned, his voice louder than he intended it to be. "Who is your friend?"

"You know who did it."

Harry let go of his daughter suddenly, and fell back against the bathroom doorframe. "What…Lily…what are you talking about?"

"You did it, Daddy."

And just like that, Harry's world went black.

oOo

Harry Potter was lucky that he had so many friends who could help out. Hermione and Ron took custody of his children, as Harry had to be committed for life to a secure psychiatric institution.

It took a long time for him to realise what had happened to him after Ginny's suicide-no, _murder._

"You suffer from Dissociation Identity Disorder." The doctor had told Harry gently. He was seeing a doctor as he was committed to a Muggle hospital. No wizarding hospitals knew just how to treat Harry's condition, and Ron and Hermione had decided it was best for Harry to stay out of the public eye. "Your traumatic childhood and environmental factors will all have led up to this disorder becoming present."

"Your alter, 'You-Know-Who', I imagine is based on Voldemort." Hermione had murmured during a visit. She had been doing some research on the disorder, clearly. Harry simply sat in his white uniform, staring out of the window, as she spoke.

"Lily Luna knew it was you, obviously. But mate, you—I mean, _You-Know-Who,_ must have told her not to say anything to you." Ron was finding it hard to speak to Harry, especially since the real cause of Ginny's death had come to light.

"Your alter murdered your wife after you found out she was having an affair," the doctor continued. "I can imagine that he tried to recreate the same murder when he murdered Marianne Summers."

Harry couldn't process all of the information at once. So he just stopped speaking.

Hermione came every day to try and get through to him, and she often brought his children, though James, Albus and Lily didn't really know how to speak to him. Ron rarely came, and when he did, Harry could see the pain on his face. His best friend had _murdered_ his sister, and he just couldn't comprehend the illness like Hermione could.

"We'll be back to see you soon, Harry," Hermione always told him, as they were leaving the hospital. "And I promise, we'll understand this disorder and treat you soon."

It was an empty promise. To treat Harry would be to treat his mind, and after all—his mind didn't just belong to him anymore.

* * *

 **Written For:**

\- Astronomy Class, Assignment #1 Task #1: Write about a split personality.

 **A.N:** This is loosely based on the film "Hide and Seek".


End file.
